Tag Archives: Non classé

The Manifesto reproduced below has been open to signature by over 120 intellectuals, legal scholars, historians, economists and politicians from all over Europe (www.tdem.eu). We, European citizens, from different backgrounds and countries, are today launching this appeal for the in-depth transformation of the European institutions and policies. This Manifesto contains concrete proposals, in particular a project for a Democratization Treaty and a Budget Project which can be adopted...

So, the share ownership of the newspaper Le Monde is going to change. A French investment banker is going to sell his shares to a Czech billionaire who himself made a fortune in coal mining and frequently used tax havens. Should we acquiesce in this situation or is it not time to consider the legal and fiscal regime which would enable us to re-shape the model of the media? Let us be very clear: we in no way wish to question the journalists or the management of the press. They campaign with...

In the United States, it was not until the mid 1960s that the former slaves finally obtained the right to sit in the same buses as whites, to go to the same schools and, at the same time, accede to the right to vote. In Brazil, the right to vote for the poor dates from the 1988 constitution, just a few years before the first multi-racial elections in South Africa in 1994. The comparison may shock: the population in Brazil is much more mixed than the two other countries. In 2010, in the...

In the United States, it was not until the mid 1960s that the former slaves finally obtained the right to sit in the same buses as whites, to go to the same schools and, at the same time, accede to the right to vote. In Brazil, the right to vote for the poor dates from the 1988 constitution, just a few years before the first multi-racial elections in South Africa in 1994. The comparison may shock: the population in Brazil is much more mixed than the two other countries. In 2010, in...

Since Spring 2018, Italy has been governed by a strange social-nativist coalition of the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the Lega, (the former Northern League). The Five Star Movement (M5S) is an anti-system and anti-establishment party, which is unclassifiable in the usual left-right typologies but one of its leitmotifs is a guaranteed basic income. The Lega is a regionalist and anti-tax movement, now converted into a nationalist party specialised in hunting foreigners. It would be an...

While European leaders are preparing to tighten the conditions of entry into the European Union it is worth trying to get a clearer picture of the current patterns of migration and more broadly of Europe’s positioning in the globalisation process. The data available are incomplete but are sufficient to establish the main orders of magnitude. The most comprehensive data are those gathered by the United Nations Population Division on the basis of demographic statistics provided by each...

While the political crisis deepens in Italy and in Spain, France and Germany are still demonstrably incapable of formulating precise and ambitious proposals for reforming Europe. All that is required however is for these four countries, who alone account for three quarters of the GDP and the population of the Euro zone, to agree on a common approach and the way to reform would be open. How can we explain such extraordinary inertia and why is it so serious? In France, there is a...

Should we burn May ’68? Critics claim that the spirit of May ’68 has contributed to the rise of individualism, even to ultra-liberalism. In truth, these assertions do not stand up to close scrutiny. On the contrary, the May ’68 Movement was the start of a historical period of considerable reduction in social inequalities in France which ran out of steam later for quite different reasons. Let’s go back for a moment. In France the years 1945-1967 are marked by high rates of growth, but...

Next month Karl Marx will be 200 years old. What would he have thought of the sad state Russia is in today? This is a country which never ceased to claim to be ‘Marxist Leninist’ throughout the Soviet period. Doubtless he would have denied any responsibility for a regime which appeared long after his death. Marx grew up in a world of censitory oppression and private property sacralization, where even the owners of slaves could be handsomely compensated if their property was violated...

After the Italian elections and Trump’s commercial antics one might well feel depressed and be tempted to use Europe to play the same silly game of introverted assertion of identity – strengthening immigration laws and ramping up protectionist measures. In so doing, we would be forgetting two key points. One: contrary to what we sometimes hear, the rise of European populism is not explained by any flood of immigrants. The truth is that the number of migrants entering the UE was much...